The favourite son
by Hellsleprechaun
Summary: Although Esther loved them all Finn was always her favourite. Elijah, Klaus, Kol and Rebekah's insights into the relationship between Esther and the "favourite son."


**I wrote this after what Kol said in 3x15 about the others being left on the outside of the circle while Finn, the "favourite son" was in there with Esther and I got the impression that the others being left in the cold by Esther (figuratively) was not unfamiliar.**

**I do not own the vampire diaries, it belongs to L.J Smith and the CW.**

A thirteen year old Kol sat with Elijah, Nik, Rebekah and Henrich by the fire, trying to warm themselves by huddling together.

He looked resentfully over at the table, where a twenty year old Finn sat with Esther, they were talking animatedly, Esther's eyes were brighter than he had ever seen when she was speaking to somebody else, including her other children.

Finn said something quietly which caused Esther to let out a rather loud peal of laughter, he was mildly surprised, he had only ever seen his mother laugh a handful of times, and each one of them was at something her beloved Finn said or did.

He personally did not see the appeal, he loved his brother, but he was not as moral as Elijah, as fun as Nik, or as fiery as Rebekah, he was colder, calmer, it was always almost impossible to know what he was thinking or feeling. If anything at all, he recalled Klaus once doing a rather accurate impression of Finn, depicting him as an mindless, unfeeling creature of sorts that lived only to follow mother's orders.

Nik had done it in front of Finn to try and make him laugh, he had always insisted that his brother was far too serious. It had not worked, Finn had glowered at them all for a few moments before continuing to ignore them.

That was the way Kol always saw Finn, serious, aloof, and almost unfeeling. Perhaps the only good memory he had of Finn was when he was five and he had woken up in the middle of the night after a horrifying nightmare about a ghost chasing him through the forest, but no matter how fast he ran to escape it, it was never fast enough. He had been panting and, much to his chagrin, frightened tears began to form in the corners of his eyes.

He had looked to Elijah and then Niklaus, both were still sleeping, he saw that Finn was wide awake and watching him, he was hit by a wave of shame, he was certain that his cold brother would either laugh at him or ignore him, which was almost worse. Finn had smiled at him kindly, if not warmly, and patted him on the shoulder, he told him it would be alright because mothers spells protected the house and all who dwelled in it. He had fallen back to sleep with ease. The next day Finn did not comment on their exchange and behaved as though nothing had happened and went back to ignoring him.

He supposed his brother was not all bad, he had his decent qualities, but sometimes Kol struggled to remember these when filled with envy as he watched his mother lavish Finn with more affection than she had ever shown to the rest of them put together.

The first time Klaus realised that his mother had a favourite was when he was eleven years old. Mikael was in one of his rages, one of the other men he had been hunting with had done something that had infuriated Mikael, clearly sparring verbally with the man had not been enough to quell his fury.

When he arrived home he had greeted Esther with a smile and a kiss, but the way he held himself allowed Niklaus to see that he was unhappy.

Finn however did not seem to recognise this, or if he did his teenage clumsiness was too great for the incident to be avoided.

He was walking past the table, when his elbow caught a pile of bowels and sent them smashing to the floor with a loud crash and a tinkling of shattered clay.

Mikael turned his burning gaze towards Finn and stalked towards him, seeming as though he was going to slap him.

He never made it to his son however as Esther flung herself in his way, "do not touch him, Mikael. It was an accident, calm down." She soothed her husband, but there was a hardness there also. She was not asking her husband not to harm their son, she was telling him that she was not allowing him to.

Mikael nodded once and sat down in his chair near the fire, while Esther ushered Finn out of the room and into the bedroom to keep him out of Mikael's way for the rest of the evening.

The next night Klaus and Kol were messing around, poking, tickling and generally annoying each other, when Kol knocked Klaus causing him to spill scalding soup down his shirt and across the floor.

Mikael got to his feet and approached Nik, towering over the small boy, grabbing him by the shirt he hauled him to his feet, and began his tirade about how foolish and clumsy he was.

Allowing Mikael's angry words to fade into the background, Klaus looked to his mother pleadingly, she was suddenly extremely caught up in the sewing on her lap and would not meet his eyes.

The single sharp slap his father delivered acted as emphasis on the realisation that while Esther loved him, she would always love Finn more.

Finn being the favourite son was not as not as upsetting for Rebekah as it was for her brothers, although that did not mean she liked it.

As she was the only daughter of the family, she got more attention than any of the others, not including Finn of course. Mikael was by no means a warm and cuddly man, but he had shown her more affection than her brothers, and would often buy her clumsily carved wooden dolls that they sold at the market, or let her sit on his knee by the fire as he told her stories.

Esther also showered her with a reasonable amount of attention as she was her only daughter, she taught her to cook, or at least tried to, Rebekah was not as skilled as her mother when it came to preparing dinner for the family. Esther also loved to make beautiful dresses for her and plat her hair when she was a little girl.

However, Esther did not take her out alone, just the two of them, the way she did with Finn, Rebekah would have liked that, but at least she and Esther sometimes spent time alone together at home whenever the others were out. This was until Finn returned and then all of her mother's attention would go to him and Rebekah would be almost completely ignored, as though she had suddenly ceased existing. Whenever that happened she always felt colder. She would watch the two of them together, the way Esther practically glowed in his presence, it was as though the two of them were in their own warm, comfortable, little world, and she was left on the outside in the cold.

It was hard not to be jealous, but she was not just jealous because of Finn's relationship with their mother, she was also jealous of their mother's relationship with Finn. Of all five of her brothers, he was the only one she was not close to, the only one she did not get along with, it was not that they argued, it was simply that they did not communicate.

They all shared a bed so at night so they would all huddle together for warmth and he was not excluded from that, and she was positive that none of them would want to exclude him, but it was often as though he were there in body only, he did not often join in their conversations before they went to sleep. Other than when they all went to bed, he rarely spent any time with any of them, not out of nastiness, she noted, more that they did not really capture his attention. Finn spent a good deal of his time alone, and he was happy this way, the only person who's company he ever appeared to appreciate was Esther's.

Rebekah knew she loved her brother, she loved each member of her family, despite their many collective flaws, but there was no particular quality of his that she loved. She loved him because he was her brother- family, if it was not for that then she was almost sure that she would have no connection to him.

But still she loved both her mother and Finn, she knew that although they would always put the other first, she could always count on them both.

Elijah loved his mother, and he knew that she loved him too, she adored each of her children, they and Mikael were her whole life, but he had always seen that she held a strong preference for Finn.

He would never be unkind enough to say that he did not see why, although when his younger siblings had said as much, he had reprimanded them, but a small part of him had often wondered.

As a child he had often been tempted to ask his mother why Finn was her golden boy, why not him, or one of the others, but he never had. Truthfully he had been afraid of what answer he would receive.

As he grew up, he stopped such childish thoughts, she loved Finn best, it was a fact, and there was nothing else to do but accept it.

However he had always tried his best to protect the others from the knowledge that they would always come second best, at the most.

He always remembered as a twenty year old man he held a one year old Henrich on his knee, as he and the others sat by the fire. Henrich was too young at this point to be trusted not to burn himself, and anyway, Elijah quite enjoyed holding the warm wriggling little boy on his lap, even if he kept tangling his small chubby hands in his hair. Much to the amusement of everybody else.

He was caring for his siblings for the night as Mikael was away on a hunt with some of the other men in the village, and Esther had taken Finn out into the night to show him some of her magic.

Elijah knew at this point that she suspected that Finn was the only one of her children who possessed any magical ability, in fact she was convinced of it. Although neither Elijah, their father, any of the others, or even Finn himself had ever seen any evidence of it.

He laughed as he saw Niklaus and Kol wrestling around across the dirty floor. Klaus was allowing his little brother to gain the upper hand and best him, for a minute or so, before as he always did, he ended up pinning the eleven year old to the floor and teasing him.

Rebekah threw small stones she had gathered from outside at them.

It was a pleasant evening, no Mikael to frighten everybody, and, although it did not happen every night, no Esther showing her clear favouritism towards her second oldest.

"It's late, I think we should be going to sleep." Elijah told his little siblings, much to their disappointment.

"Oh come on Elijah! Mother and Father are gone, lets have fun." Klaus pleaded, pulling his best attempt at a sweet and endearing expression.

Elijah smirked, "you are fourteen Niklaus, you are too old to be sweet."

Klaus chuckled in agreement and then nudged Rebekah, knowing full well that she could melt her brother's resolve with a mere dimpled smile.

"No, Rebekah, don't even try." He warned good naturedly.

Elijah laid a sleeping Henrich in his cradle and pulled it into the bedroom he shared with the others, so that they would all be present if anything happened.

He then climbed into the bed with his brothers and sister. He slept on one end, and Klaus on the other, with Rebekah and Kol sandwiched between them.

Kol and Rebekah were kicking each other playfully under the blankets and giggling, until Rebekah asked solemnly. "Why does Mama take Finn out and not us?"

Elijah and Niklaus both froze, neither sure exactly what to tell her, she was seven years old, Elijah was not going to tell her that her mother loved Finn better than she did her. If he had his way Niklaus would be ignorant to this fact and Kol and Rebekah would remain ignorant forever.

"Because Bekah, Finn is like mother, he has magic too." Klaus lied smoothly to his little sister, he should have known better than to think she would not see through it, even at her age. She always knew when she was being lied to.

"No he does not. If he had magic then we might have seen it. Even Finn does not believe he has magic."

When did she get so smart? Elijah asked himself.

"Just because Finn himself does not know it, does not mean that it is untrue." He pointed out, hoping to placate her.

"You are both being dishonest, I can tell."

He had never really questioned his sister's strange instinct, but he knew after seven years of knowing her that it worked, however it worked.

"Go to sleep, Rebekah, we're just tired, when people are tired things seem… strange." Elijah hoped that this would placate her.

"I know that, Elijah, but that is not what this is. It is because Finn is her favourite, I can tell."

"Then why did you ask?" Kol snapped, uncomfortable with the subject being brought up.

"Shut up Kol and go to sleep," Klaus told him.

They did not speak after that, but Elijah stayed awake long after his little brothers and sister fell asleep, filled with a sadness and a regret that he had not been able to protect any of them from the truth, his gaze travelled to Henrich's crib, he sighed at the realisation that he would not be able to protect him either.

**The end.**

**No offence intended to Casper Zafer, I've heard he's hilarious, we just haven't seen any of that in Finn. I did not give Finn's point of view because I don't really know what he's like as a character, although I would like for him to actually get more than a few lines next time he's in an episode, to give the fans some clues about his character.**

**Please review.**


End file.
